When I lived in India, they seemed to love the "ing" form of verbs so much ... so to go to a market is to go marketing. This Sunday was all about marketing for me. I needed to finish the last bits of Christmas shopping and frankly, I just could not face the idea of another day in the Oxford St-Bond St-Regent St triangle. There are just too many tourists there and the shops are far from inspiring. All chains, chains, chains ... the last thing I want is to be chained up.
So I headed to the East End instead. First it was the Old Spitalfields Market, which was full of pretentious stalls selling junk that you can buy in Camden for a better price, like those plastic handbags which look like records. (Btw. pork sandwich for five quid, anyone? Ewww ...) I had a look around but really did not fancy anything. It's a nice, clean open space to walk around, though. Next up, Brick Lane. No one comes to eat here any more, apart from the tourists, because the restaurants are crap. One of them even featured in BBC's Rogue Restaurants programme recently. Instead, I wanted to check out some of the Bengali clothes stores but they only seem to sell fabric, which is useless, since I am not really up for sewing. I want to buy some cotton kurtas, the kind that you get in Pantaloons, Westlife or Fabindia in Delhi. Anyone know where to get those in London?
There are several markets and independent shops around Brick Lane, ranging from upmarket butiques to drunken men selling stolen stuff out of a suitcase. Lots of streetwear and customized outfits - think Viviene Westwood, punk, men in tight fuchsia jeans, women with purple & green hair, tartan, dresses which had parts of them put through the office shredder, then a few flowers and buttons were sewn in. Very personalized but if you go round the stalls for long enough, you will see that they all sell the same stuff and it's all a little bit boring. One lady at the Sunday Up Market tried to sell me two bracelets for fifteen quid. "Look, handmade." Right. If you're gonna tell me something is handmade, first take the Ikea tags off. How "Up Market" is that? There are a few nice food stalls there, if you fancy a curry or all kinds of vegetarian and ethnic food on-the-go.
I also popped down to the Eastside bookshop on Brick Lane and bought some nice postcards there. It seems like a cozy place and they even have comfy armchairs (which are not all occupied like in Borders on Oxford Street) where you can sit down and read. They seem to be well stocked-up on the South Asian themed novels, appropriately for their location. If you want some old shoes, very pretty old shoes, in fact, then Absolute Vintage on Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane can be recommended.
On the way home, I stopped at Shepherd's Bush to visit the new Westfield shopping centre. I never realized how run-down the area actually was. I mean, it's not soo bad but I imagined Shepherd's Bush as a prettier place. I mean, it's a pretty name, right? Westfield is everything you would expect from Europe's largest shopping centre. It's big! I mean, really BIG. I only saw about 10% of it. You could spend a week here. And, unlike Oxford Street, it's all indoors, which is quite pleasant now in winter. And and and there are less people here and no tourists. There will also be a cinema inside opening in 2009. As much as I am done with commerce and sick of this whole shop-yourself-silly culture, I have to say, when it needs to be done, this is the place I will come back to do it. It = shopping, of course.
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